I have retired from the classic classroom but not from teaching. So I am in the process of reinventing myself as an online and social media ELL teacher.

I use different resources to help me kick-start into my new role. But more about that in future posts.

Over the years, Michael, one of our school’s tech experts, has helped me with my social media projects. The first one was this blog, Teach Well Tomorrow. After retiring, he suggested I morph the blog.

Finally, after a year and a half of searching for purpose and relevance, the ‘ah ha’ moment came to me this morning. I finished reading Pamela Paul’s wonderful article in the New York Times about allowing kids to be bored. Raising my eyes to the top of the page, I noticed Roger Cohen’s opinion piece: The harm in hustle culture on the homogenization of our lives. In Carol Jago’s teaching terminology, these articles would be ‘paired’ texts. I smiled.

I find it hard not to open links to activities for the beginning of the academic year. I have always searched for new ideas on icebreakers and how to help my diverse students bond into a learning community in Room 463.

However, I always incorporated Jim Burke’s image analysis on what students can expect from the course, which I already posted about here.

Looking at the image, I thought it was a perfect metaphor for my new status, a word I can barely type – retire

I have so closely identified myself as an educator, specializing in ELL.

What is my new/renewed identity?

My plans for new beginnings are murky, as yet:

There is a need for volunteer teachers.

I have always dreamt of studying history of art.

I have a story line for a children’s book.

I’d like to collate the copious notes that I’ve taken throughout my career as a teacher.

And, of course, to travel off season.

I will even need a cane, since the first thing I have to attend to is a total knee replacement. However, I will get rid of that (the cane) very quickly.

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It was fitting that my final ELL Reading lesson should be taken from What’s the Big Idea by my long distance mentor, Jim Burke.

I followed Burke’s discussion plan. We held a lively ‘Conversational Roundtable’ on the relationships in Romeo and Juliet as a review for the final exam. The students could easily relate to the relationships: parent-child, romantic, friends and mentor-child. We looked for what rules were common to all the relationships. We discussed the differences. However, the harder question was how these relationships shape our identity. By then the students were getting a little tired, looking forward to their summer break.

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I decided to end my final year of teaching with a challenge for me as well as my ELLs. I hoped Shakespeare’s play with its eternal themes of relationships would act as a bridge for entering regular English 10.

It was fun. I taught out of my comfort zone, knowing the students would have to spend most of the time acting. The students rapped one of Juliet’s soliloquies, mimed cooking , ironing and folding laundry while acting. They certainly got into the rhythm of the play.

Damyanti Biswas is an author, blogger, animal-lover, spiritualist. Her work is represented by Ed Wilson from the Johnson & Alcock agency. When not pottering about with her plants or her aquariums, you can find her nose deep in a book, or baking up a storm.